Altered States of Life
by Drawnonthewall
Summary: Five times when Chloe and Beca contacted each other while not sober, and once when they were.
1. Chapter 1

It was 2011, and as I breathed my last breaths as a child- still comforted by the idea that my parents would fill my bank account, that, because of the law, their separate homes would always be viable options, I begrudgingly, unknowingly, set my sights on my first love.

Love, in this context to be read as a girl with blue eyes that belonged in a cartoon and bright red hair that eventually turned blonde. Let's be clear: her name was Chloe. Chloe sang with the honesty and purity of someone whose only love was music and was a pre-med major. She was perfect.

It all happened at Barden college- a school for idiots, and me, in one of Virginia's many random nowhere towns. I found myself away from home for nine heavily supervised (partially thanks to my estranged father's proclivity to pop into my dorm room at any given moment) and nearly unbearable months.

This first time I saw here, I was running from what would turn out to be the first of many unannounced encroachments on my space by aforementioned previously-deadbeat dad and somehow managed to wander into the career fair.

Unbelievable sights lay around every corner. There was a quidditch team, there were Deaf Jews... there was Chloe. Having spent my teenhood thus far secluded and avoiding all overly bubbly people like her, I set proper decorum aside and was as nonchalantly rude to her as I could possibly be simply out of principle. Not one to let my grouchy, snarky demeanor deter her, she stayed just as bubbly as ever throughout our conversation, her face only falling when I said goodbye.

If our first interaction could be classified as awkward thanks to all of it's hemming and hawing and pretending neither of us were completely enamored, our second was indescribably painful.

Except, as she skipped away, nude as the news after ambushing me in the shower, I didn't flinch in pain. Instead I gaped in awe at the situation.

I, Beca Mitchell, badass MC with a chip on her shoulder and absolutely no friends thanks to the headphones strapped semi-permanently to her head and the angry scowl pasted on her face, was smitten. Not only that, I was head over heels for a girl who stood for everything I hated.

She was bright and shiny and overly confident where I was dark and grungy and upsettingly self conscious. And yet...

And yet, I joined the bellas...

And yet, I began crafting mixes obsessively, all featuring Pale Blue Eyes by the Velvet Underground. Between classes, I'd whip my laptop out and tweak some new song here or there or create a better drum fill to meld a sample and the base track more readily, all the while hearing Titanium in the back of my mind.

And yet, I started texting Chloe throughout the day, meeting her for coffee under the guise of doing homework, during which time she would actually do homework and I'd invariably end up working on mixes, each time dissolving into us discussing music or life or her family back home.

When I texted her first, which was admittedly rare, they had the tendency to read something like, "My GOD, what did Locke have up his ass?" or "How long do you think it would take Kimmy Jin to notice if I hid all my stuff and make it look like I had moved out?" or, sometimes, in moments of desperation, just a simple, "Study sesh on the grass?".

Despite my getting close to Chloe, or at least as close as I could manage, Jesse was my first friend at the ever-illustrious Barden University. My first friend ever, if I'm being truthful. He elbowed and shouldered his way into my life much the way I did at concerts in order to get to the front. He simply wouldn't take no for an answer, all boyish charm and unwavering happiness.

Jesse was also my first customer in college.

It should be noted here that I am by no means a drug lord. I simply had good enough connections back home to be given good deals on a semi-regular basis, and only ever sold enough to pay for my DJ'ing equipment, which my father refused to pitch in for and my mother simply couldn't swing.

When I came to Barden, I'd assumed my dealing days were over.

However, when my Sennheisers broke after a particularly disastrous Bellas practice when Cynthia Rose fell on my bag during a lesson on pirouettes from Stacy, I called up an old dealer friend who lived an hour away and picked up enough to get the money for headphones and then some.

Soon after, Jesse mentioned a story featuring a bong, a cat, and a particularly disastrous interaction between the two. Seeing an opportunity, I offered to smoke him out in an attempt to start building my client base.

We smoked in the stairwell of his dorm, where not even the pungent aroma of smoke could overpower the stench of too many guys in too small a space, all, seemingly, with a proclivity for never washing.

Because I'd never bought from my friend, Dylan, before, I didn't know what to expect. As it turns out, Dylan's weed was far more powerful than even the premium stuff I'd been used to in Oregon. I was higher than I'd been in years after two and a half bowls, and Jesse... well, Jesse just sort of sat on the cement floor and stared into space.

After about an hour of this, we wandered outside to find the perviously-blue sky to now be an angry, ominous dark grey.

"Do you hear that rumbling?" I whispering, trying to listen quietly. Jesse, his lids heavy and his face slack-jawed, simply mumbled, "huh?" and blearily tried to get his eyes to focus on me just before the first crash of lightning ripped through the sky.

Curiously, it wasn't raining, and therefor we stayed outside, laying down on our backs, partially enthralled by the storm, partially too scared to move.

"What IS lightning?" I asked. Jesse just shook his head in an attempt to indicate that he didn't know. "Does lightning burn the clouds? Is that why there's no rain, because clouds are water and it's burning all the water?" Jesse just chuckled.

"No, seriously... we don't have lightning storms in Portland. I don't get them. How big is a lightning bolt?" I started to become frustrated at his lack of knowledge.

"Text Chloe. Didn't you say she grew up here? I bet she's a lightning expert," he offered, emphasizing the "expert" part of the sentence.

I nodded my agreement. His logic seemed sound. I attempted to type out all my questions to her, but the text became too long, so, in the interest of time, I deleted it and simply wrote, "Here's the thing. I'm really high and I have a lot of questions about lightning." then, after a moment, I sent another, "We're on the grass in front of Baton. Come watch God knock on the sky." I got no response but wasn't too worried, the monstrous storm overhead holding my rapt attention.

She showed up a few minutes later, shaking her head at me, those now-blonde curls swaying back and forth. I grabbed her ankle lightly before I could think better of it.

"Come lay down with us, it really is cool," I said, trying to sound as un-high as possible.

She looked around for a moment, as if undecided, before nodding and laying beside me, her head resting my outstretched arm.

After a few moments and a single lightning rip, she shivered, moving in close, tucking her body against mine.

"It's cold out here," she whispered, her breath tickling my cheek. I wrapped my closest arm around her, pulling her closer, when Jesse began snoring.

"Oh jesus christ," I breathed out. Kid clearly couldn't handle his shit.

"We should get him inside," she said, this time sitting up, looking down at me.

I deliberated leaving him outside for a moment, finally groaning and sitting up as well.

"Jesse, dude, let's get you inside," I grunted, trying to pull him up by one surprisingly heavy arm. Feeling the tug on his arm, he slowly got up, his eyes barely opening. Chloe and eyes each slung one of his (again, shockingly heavy) arms over our shoulders and began the arduous trek to his dorm room, luckily on the first floor and luckily unlocked.

We deposited him unceremoniously on his bed and waved goodbye as we walked back to my room, two floors above his.

Kimmy Jin was gone, an unusual but not unwelcomed occurrence.

As Chloe sat down on my bed, I pulled open one of my drawers, pulling out a pack of cigarettes and pulling one out.

"Do you mind?" I motioned to the cigarette as I opened a window. She shook her head, still smirking as she watched my light it and blow the smoke carefully out the window.

"It just helps me clear my mind when I'm high and want to be clear enough to talk to someone," I offered by way of an apology. She nodded her understanding and laid down with a yawn.

"It's getting late," she commented sleepily after a few minutes of silence. As I flicked the last of my cigarette out the window into the now-torrential downpour, I noticed it wad long since gotten dark.

Jesse and I must have been laying in one of the streetlights they had outside the dorm and just not noticed the sky change from grey to black.

"Yeah, well, it's raining pretty damn hard now too. You should probably just crash here, you live across campus, right?" I tried not to gape at what came out of my mouth. Clearly, I was still high.

"Okay," apparently needing no arm-twisting. "Do you have some stuff I can borrow?"

I nodded, frowning in concentration as I went to my closet and began digging around for a pair of sweats and an extra shirt.

Eventually I found a shirt that read "Keep Portland Weird" and a pair of Roosevelt High School sweats, handing them to her at change into while I pulled on my usual boxer shorts and oversized Voodoo Donuts shirt.

Foregoing my usual bedtime ritual of brushing my teeth and washing my face, I opted to crawl into bed immediately, partially scared that if I left the room, Chloe would magically disappear.

After she set an alarm on her phone to wake up the next day, she edged her way into my bed, wrapping an arm around me and pulling my back towards her, causing my entire body to tense, as I was now sober enough to be uncomfortable with physical contact.

She didn't seem to notice.

"Will Kimmy Jin care?" she whispered, her breath once again tickling my ear.

"Don't care," I mumbled, too tired to truly care about anything except the fact that Chloe smelled like warm sugar and vanilla, and she came when I asked her to.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Keep reviewing! I have a vague idea for how I want this story to play out, but if you guys have suggestions, seriously, I'm open.**

Chloe:

At 21 years old, I still felt like a kid.

If I didn't live with Aubrey, I would think that I was weird for feeling that way.

That everyone else with college graduation looming within the year had their shit together and I was just the only dunce cap who still wanted her favorite stuffed elephant and missed her mom running her fingers through her hair and humming her to sleep.

But no, Aubrey was just as much of a childish mess as I was.

However, despite my still feeling much the same as I did when I was twelve, I was, for all intents and purposes, pretty much an adult.

I was responsible, went to class, studied hard, and partied much like a young adult.

On a particularly rowdy Saturday night, four cranberry vodkas in and at least five shots down, I decided to text Beca.

I feel the need to explain something fairly basic.

Beca, to me, is amazing.

Most people think she's all dark colors and pale skin, but she's let me see the light side of her.

The white of her teeth in a smile, the red in her cheeks when she got embarrassed by someone touching her, the highlights in her hair when she spent too much time outside working on mixes.

She hid all of these things from most people, kept her teeth hidden behind a tightlipped smirk, tucked her head when she blushed, dyed her hair a neutral chocolate brown constantly.

But she let me see. Even if they were just glimpses, she let me see _her_.

She beamed at me when she thought no one was looking, just shook her head when she blushed rather than hiding it, and texted me pictures of her hair before she dyed it, usually with some sort of comment like "What is HAPPENING? Whyyyy, hair?"

She'd begun texting me passing thoughts about her stance on the food in the dining hall, or about Toms Lee, the popular Asian everyone on campus knew, or about anything and everything a few weeks after joining the Bellas.

So, drunkenly, I texted Beca, which wasn't so unusual at all.

"Come to thr party im atttttt," it read.

I spent quite a while crafting that text, and in my alcohol-heavy mind, it was Byron, it was Yeats... It was the best thing I'd ever written, how could she say no? When she didn't reply immediately, I waited. Time would tell.

And tell it did, in a special Beca way.

Rather than saying no, she instead sent a picture of a monstrous stack of C.D.s, her hand blurry but clearly there, flipping off the pile.

Apparently that meant she was stuck at the radio station.

With a determination that can only be described as stalwart and drunken, I poured a cup of punch from the party into a red solo cup and began my half mile trek to the radio station.

About ten minutes into the walk, I passed by a 7/11, and, coming up with a brilliant plan, popped in to buy Beca a pack of cigarettes.

I remembered she smoked, and figured it might be nice after a stressful day.

So, red solo cup and cigarettes gripped tightly in my hand, I continued my journey, a shit eating grin plastered on my face.

Upon reaching the radio station, I began banging on the door. I was battering my fists against the door for about five minutes before finally calling her on the phone.

"Chloe? Are you alright?" Her voice cracked with worry.

How could someone not love her?

"Yeahhhhh, I'm good. I bought you smokes! Come to the door," I laughed.

I heard her grumble, standing up and making her way to the door.

"Jesus, Chloe! How drunk are you?" She exclaimed upon seeing my state, grabbing my arm gently, her face contorted in a mix of confusion and anxiety.

"Pretty drunk, but here, I got you these," I handed her the cigarettes and the alcohol with a flourish, one foot crossing over the other and bowing deep after she took my gifts.

She sighed, running her hand through her hair before acquiescing and taking a sip. Immediately, her face screwed up at the taste.

"Sorry," I winced, realizing I hadn't actually tried the punch.

"What the hell," she coughed, "did you make this out of vodka and food coloring?" She gasped through wheezes. "Okay, now I'm grateful for those cigarettes," she sighed.

I nodded dumbly, not knowing what to say.

I followed her as she slid down the side of the building, one knee propped up, the other leg going straight out as she opened the pack and lit a cigarette before taking another swig of the punch.

Still in a drunken haze, I reached out for the cigarette just to have Beca jerk her hand away.

"No way, dude. Cigarettes and singing don't go together. Cigarettes, nodes, and singing will probably kill you," She glared at me. But it was a glare of love, I could tell.

"Okay," I sighed, scooting towards her.

How could someone not see how great of a person she was?

I laid my head down on her lap, smiling as she began running her fingers through my hair.

I hummed happily. It felt nice.

"Do you like my new hair?" I asked. After bleaching it blonde, I'd been self conscious of what other people thought of it. Now seemed the best time to ask her what she really felt.

"You know, I really do. The red made your eyes pop, but you just seem like a blonde in the best way," she said, inhaling as she took a puff of her cigarette.

"Mmm, thanks. Can I sleep while you finish organizing the CDs?" I questioned, my eyes shut.

"I was actually about to leave. Fuck Luke and his stupid CDs," she said.

"Don't fuck Luke. Don't fuck Jesse," I said, not thinking, half asleep in her lap.

She laughed. I think she thought I went to sleep, because she waited a really long time before answering.

When she did, she leaned down a little, her breath stinging with smoke and alcohol, whispering, "Don't worry, I won't," before pressing a light kiss to the top of my head.

She waited another beat before moving her hand from my hair to my shoulder, rubbing it gently.

"Chloe, let's get you home, okay?" I nodded sleepily and allowed her to help me stand up, the red sol cup forgotten outside the station.

She leaned back, locking the door and then wrapping her arm around my waist to support me.

"You smell nice. Like fresh laundry... and cigarettes," I commented.

"Well, the cigarette smell is your fault," she grunted.

"I didn't say I didn't like it," I leaned in and softly kissed her cheek, sloppy but honest.

She tense up but didn't react except for the errant comment of, "How drunk ARE you?"

"I'm not drunk. I just like you," I sighed.

"Okay, boozey, okay," she chuckled.

But thing was, I did. Beca may be dark and growly and grumpy, but she was unendingly kind and honest and silly when you got to know her. When she let you get to know her.

I mean, a few weeks ago, I saw her stoned as fuck.

"I like sober Beca and stoned Beca and grouchy Beca, but you know what my favorite Beca is?" I giggled.

"Is it 'Help-you-get-home-Beca'?" she huffed, adjusting my arm around her neck.

"No, it's immature Beca. When you text me silly jokes and tell me about something that makes you laugh," we'd somehow reached the door to my apartment. Aubrey must have been asleep but left the door unlocked, because Beca opened the door and we (attempted to) quietly stumble to my room.

Once we got into my room, I stumbled forward and flopped onto my bed, burrowing my face into the pillow.

"Stay here tonight, Becs... please," it came out as a whine more than anything.

"No, I really shouldn't. I'm going to go home, Chloe. I'll talk to you tomorrow," she brushed the hair from my head and squeezed my hand before leaving.

"Why don't you like me," I breathed out, almost unwillingly. The door squeaked to a stop as Beca paused in her motion to close it. I thought she'd left. But leave she did, the door finally clicked shut, then the front door did too, and I quickly fell into an uneasy sleep.

The next morning, I woke up in basically the same position, shoes and all, deep creases pressed into my face from my pillow, to an unrelenting knocking.

"You need to give me a second, Aubrey," I said shakily as I slowly stood.

Regardless of my warning, the door opened to reveal Beca, all 5'2 of her, holding a paper bag in one hand, the other pressed firmly to her eyes.

"Are you naked?" She asked hesitantly, peeking through her fingers.

"Nothing you haven't already seen," I sighed, sitting back down and slowly untying my shoes. "And why are you looking through your fingers anyway? Trying to perv on me?" it was meant to sound flirty, but just ended up sounding tired.

"Okay, you're chipper," she chuckled, walking into my small room and putting the paper bag down before reaching into her back pack and pulling out a bottle of aspirin, a bottle of water, and a thermos of what I hoped was coffee.

"Oh thank god," I said, quickly snatching the water and aspirin.

"How do you know those were for you, hmm?" Beca joked, watching me chug the water.

"Oh please," I breathed, out of breath from the water.

"Fair enough. I brought you some food as well," She said, pulling a croissant from the paper bag.

"You're my hero, Beca Mitchell," I mumbled between bites of the croissant.

"Yeah, you seemed like you were in a rough state last night. Do you remember it at all?" She hedged, clearly looking for an answer.

"No," I lied. I really didn't feel like dealing with Beca's commitment phobia quite yet.

"Alright," she nodded.

"Hey, I'm pretty tired still, any chance you want to hang out in here while I do homework?" I also wasn't quite ready to let her leave.

She was already pulling her computer out of her bag.

"Well, if you insist," she smiled.

We settled into a comfortable silence, both of us sitting on my bed, me on my stomach, her sitting with my calves in her lap, her computer balanced on top of them.

Apparently I fell asleep at some point, because when I woke up, she too was asleep, headphones half on her head, slumped over behind me, arm slung over me, her breath soft in my ear. It smelled like coffee and peppermint gum.

I tried to get up only for her arm to tighten around me. _Damn_, for someone the size of a child, she had some strength in those knobby arms.

I stopped fighting after a moment, relaxing back into her embrace as she lazily intertwined our legs and nuzzled her head into my hair.

"Thank you," she breathed out.

I wasn't sure if she was asleep or awake.


	3. Chapter 3

A/N**: Sorry this one is so short. I'll update with a much longer one within the next few days.**

Beca didn't like being particularly drunk. I think it made her embarrassed the next day, so she usually chose to say she was a lightweight, drink two beers, and leave it at that.

I knew this about her. I noticed it after the third Bellas get together.

But I was determined to get her drunk. I wanted to see what would happen. So when she claimed she had homework the night of a huge rager at some soccer dudes place, I texted her, though not until after a row of shots.

"You are my best friend,BECA, but sometimes best friends need to punch each other in the face. With truth. Come to the party. COME TO THE PARTY." I sent it without thinking, but quickly regretted how forceful I sounded, so I sent her another one.

"Please, Beca, I'll even let you choose the music."

I spent a really long time on getting the punctuation correct. I wanted her to come and that seemed to be the key.

She texted back a few minutes later, "Why are you punching me with the truth? And do you really have the authority to do that?"

I texted her back a simple yes, and she was there within minutes.

She wasn't particularly excited that she didn't actually get to pick the music.

So in an attempt to get her to stay, maybe I made her drinks a little stronger than usual. Maybe I refilled her cup every time she looked away.

I kept track of how much she drank, don't judge me.

However, it turns out the line about her being a lightweight wasn't just a line. Girl got pretty damn drunk pretty quickly.

So, in my guilt, I got even more smashed in an attempt to join her in her misery.

We ended up going outside to get some air after about an hour of laying on the couch zoning out, sitting in the cool May breeze that only ever showed up at night.

As Beca dug around her bag for something or other (like I said, girl was _drunk_ and so was I, it could have been anything), I noticed the red of her cigarette pack.

"Why do smoke?" My question came out as a plea, "It's really bad for you."

Beca chuckled lightly before pulling the pack out.

"You want to know a secret?" She slurred, opening the pack with a rueful smile. I was surprised to see only one gone. "I don't really smoke... like, ever. I just keep them around and smoke when I feel... too open I guess or want people to leave me alone." She chuckled to herself again, shaking her head at the absurdity.

"That doesn't make any sense," I said.

"It started as a... what the word? Doing not what they want...Rebellion! A rebellion against my dad. It made him _so angry_," she paused to laugh at the memory, "When I would get into a fight with him over the phone, I'd say I was going out to smoke and I'd let it burn, never even inhaling, because it let him know he didn't control me. Or if I want to be left alone, I put one in my mouth and dig around in my bag like I'm looking for a lighter, it makes people leave," she put one in her mouth to demonstrate, digging in her bag with a perplexed face. She paused and took the cigarette out of her mouth and back into the pack, "No one likes the smell of smoke, it's disgusting."

"But why'd you smoke when I brought you that pack?"

"Because I didn't want to tell you the truth. This is the same pack you gave me. It makes me feel safer when people think I'm completely reckless. I'd never smoke for real, though. I don't want to ruin my voice like that."

"You act like you don't care about people's opinions, but you really do, don't you?" My words were starting to slur. I think I still made sense, though.

She sighed, looking at the ground.

"It's just easier if people don't know the truth about me. They can judge me for smoking all they want, but they're not right. It makes me feel like I'm safe if they're judging that rather than some other part of me that's real." The last few words came out as a whisper.

"I'd never judge you, Beca," I offered, leaning towards her. The massive amounts of alcohol I'd ingested started taking over. The thing is, she looked so sad and so _gorgeous_, it was hard not to kiss her.

It wasn't a secret I liked Beca. At least to me. I knew I liked her, but I also knew that she was scared of anything good. Or at least, I remembered that when I was sober. At this point, I wasn't thinking.

"I know." Her voice was low, softer than I'd ever heard it.

I tilted my head, glancing at her lips then back at her eyes. She looked scared, but she wasn't moving.

Taking a chance, I leaned in and pressed my lips to hers. She tasted like vodka and raspberry lemonade. I keep my lips pressed to hers carefully, worried that if I really committed, she might disappear.

I was wrong. She deepened the kiss, letting out an involuntary whimper as she shifted closer to me, her arms snaking up around my neck. I wrapped my hand behind her head, tangling my fingers in her hair and opening my mouth. She reciprocated and grazed my bottom lip with her tongue, unsure and shaky.

We broke apart, her eyes big.

"No... wait... Chloe," she stuttered.

"What?" The hurt was evident in my voice.

"I..." she pulled back further, "We can't."

"Jesse?" I asked. Fucking Jesse.

"No, I just..." she took a shaky breath. "You're my best friend here. I.. we..."

"This won't ruin it," I assured her, pulling her slowly back in.

She seemed to accept that and kissed me with a new fervor, her tongue immediately exploring my mouth, causing me to emit a surprised gasp.

"What?" She pulled back again.

I shook my head, not wanting to stop, grabbing onto her jacket, pulling her in again.

After a few minutes of this, we again parted, both out of breath.

"No more smoking," I whispered, my forehead resting against hers.

"No more smoking," she nodded, smiling.

A huge noise broke us from our little world. It sounded like someone broke something very hard to break, and from the cheering in the house that followed it, I was probably right.

The noise also made Beca seemingly come to her senses.

"Shit," she breathed out before standing up. "I have to... I need to..." and then she was running away, without her bag.

The next day, she wouldn't answer my calls, so I left her bag outside her door, since she also wouldn't open the door.

Before I gave it back, I threw out her cigarette pack. I didn't think she'd mind.


End file.
